Transition from Sticks & Bricks to the RV

Step 1- Sorting

What to take on the road? – What to put in storage? – What to get rid of?

  How do you decide what you are going to take with you on your new adventure; what to put into storage and what to get rid of? For me it was actually easier than I thought it would be. I just started in one room and worked my way thru the house. I knew right away the items that I would never part with; a few pieces of furniture that was passed down to us from relatives, my grandmother’s holiday Lenox China and crystal set, some favorite Longaberger baskets (also passed to me by my grandmother), my favorite holiday decorations, all our pictures, cards and gifts that our boys gave us over the years, some of their school papers, my quilting table, our comfy office chairs… you know, stuff that can’t be replaced. We rented a 5’x10’ storage unit with the knowledge that if what we wanted to keep did not fit then it needed to go.

  It was very liberating to go thru our house and purge. I mean, do we really need 6 sets of sheets? 20 bath towels? A closet full of clothes that you really only wear a third of? Kitchen cabinets full of small appliances that get used maybe one or two times? A closet full of all the crafts you tried and loved but then moved on to the next fad? Stamping, Cricut and Papercrafting, Scrapbooking (I now do this digitally) yarn out the wazoo… you get the picture. Bill was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was for me to part with all my “treasures”. The kids took what they wanted and I still kept trying to pawn stuff off on them, poor guys. The garage sale pile grew and grew and grew.

  That was the easy part. The hard part came when I got to the saved greeting cards, letters, drawings and baby clothes. I was a hot mess. I’m glad I was alone that day. I took extra time and read the little notes my mom, dad, grandmothers, husband and kids wrote to me 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago. I snapped pictures and sent texts to my boys, “look at this paper you wrote in the 2^nd grade”, “do you remember drawing this picture for me? You were always so detailed in your drawings” and so on. I am sure they were glad when that part of the sort was finished. We did have a good time reminiscing though. These are all safely tucked away in archival quality storage boxes inside plastic tubs in our 5’x10’ storage unit.

 So, what did we need to take with us on the road? The InstantPot and Air Fryer were a must. Bill’s luxury item was the KitchenAid stand mixer and mine was the air popper. Other than that we have the very basic kitchen items. We pared down our clothes to about 2 weeks worth (well for me, maybe a little more) 2 sets of towels and 1 set of sheets. Oh, and all my material, sewing machine and quilting gadgets. I’ve got to have something to do while he’s working during the day, right? And just in case we want to go camping we brought our tent, air mattress, sleeping bags, camp stove and lantern; cause let’s be honest, living in a 40’ class A is not “camping”. We still enjoy getting out in the woods and pitching a tent by a creek and be with nature.

Step 2 – Get ready for Listing

 With the sort finally complete we moved on to the task of getting the house ready to stage and list. Our realtor was wonderful; she coached us through the entire process. If you are in the Portland OR area and need a good realtor, look up Sarah Malarkey with Next Home. She is FABULOUS!! Even though we owned 2 homes prior to this one, times have changed. Everyone wants that HGTV wow factor when they walk in. Heck, I wanted it when I lived there but never quite accomplished it. Well, we did it!! We updated our kitchen with a new backsplash and gave the cabinets a much needed face lift. We painted, decluttered and staged. When they came to take the pictures for the listing, I couldn’t believe that was my house. I want to live here. Wait! I do live here and now we are going to sell this?? What are we thinking? The next few weeks were filled with very strange and unusual feelings. We were excited to start our new adventure but sad to be selling our house. Our house that we built, that we raised our boys in, that we celebrated 20 Christmas’s in, the birthday parties, the Friday night pizza nights, the ordinary day to day stuff we take for granted. The backyard where we spent many hours playing catch and practicing our pitching skills, where we camped out because it was too hot to sleep in the house, where we told stories around the fire pit and jumped out of the hot tub to make snow angels. The front porch where we sat with the neighbors while our kids played in the cul-de-sac, where we relaxed on a Friday evening with a cocktail after a long week of work. We are going to say good-bye to this house? Yes, because we have more memories to make and another chapter in our lives to write.

  With the housing market as crazy as it was, we knew as soon as the house was listed, we would most likely have a contract in a matter of days. Listing day came and our realtor had an Open House on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We took the RV and headed to the beach to anxiously await the bidding war. Thursday night, no one came. Friday night, a few lookers and a couple of showings. No offers yet. Saturday, the open house was very busy and several showings but still no offer. Bill and I were waiting and waiting and waiting. What’s the matter? Why isn’t everyone falling in love with our house? How come we haven’t received multiple offers yet? Tick Tock Tick Tock. Finally, about 10PM on Saturday the first offer came in and boy were we shocked! Then on Sunday we had three more offers!! After much discussion we finally accepted one of the offers. You would have thought we would feel elated. But there were no cart wheels or dancing for joy. We were very excited, yes, but we were also feeling a little bit sorrowful. Were we second guessing our decision to go full-time in our RV? Nope, not once did that thought ever cross our minds. We were just going thru the motions of transitioning from one life stage to another.